Learning Fear (part 2)

“And before the LORD your God, in the place that he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the LORD your God always.” (Deuteronomy 14:23)

So, fearing the Lord is something to be learned.  God, it would seem, is more interested in our heart attitudes and has given us tithing as a pathway to learn it.  A quick search of “learn to fear” reveals five Bible locations, all of them in Deuteronomy.  The other four have to do with reading the law or hearing the word of God.

So what is it with tithing?

There seems to be three physical activities described here:  a separation, a relocation and a consumption.

Tithing itself is an act of separation, a putting aside to designate some of my produce for a sacred good.  Especially when we’re talking food products, it takes a physical action to put my grain in one pile and grain dedicated to God in another.  It would not have been automatic and would require me to be intimately aware of all my possessions.

Presenting the tithe required travel.  Travel takes planning and it takes time.  In a sense, adding travel to the practice extends tithing from simply a monetary commitment, but also one of time and thought.  Travel tithes me, not just my stuff.

Eating the tithe is funny because it is something that would have been done anyway.  But somehow, consuming specially designated produce and eating it before the Lord at a specially designated location makes it a sacred act.  Doing a daily activity in an a conscientious and expensive way is worship and teaches me to fear God.

But what does this mean for me now?  At the very least, I’m thinking I ought to stop the automatic giving withdrawals, start physically writing checks and hand delivering them.  My gut reaction to this idea is that it would be a waste of time.  

But maybe that is the point.  God wants for me to enter a sacred lifestyle more than he needs my cash.

 

Learning Fear (part 1)

“And before the LORD your God, in the place that he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the LORD your God always.”  (Deuteronomy 14:23)

This verse articulates something rarely discussed around the topic of ‘the fear of God’.  Usually the discussion centres on what that fear is supposed to look like: are we to be literally afraid of God?  Or are we supposed to be simply filled with awe?

But here we see that the fear of God isn’t just a concept to understand, but rather an attitude to learn through an intentional lifestyle.

By needing to learn the fear of the Lord, it becomes obvious that this is an attitude that doesn’t come naturally.  This means that it takes effort on my part to get my heart aligned right.  Focusing on concepts nor on actions are enough to lead to transformation.

In fact, I suppose that attitudes are often given second-class citizenship after concepts and actions.  But here, we see that the action of tithing is to be performed in service of getting our attitude right.

The prize then, in God’s perspective is our heart’s transformation.  Oh praise him for pursuing such profound change within us, not being satisfied with mere surface activities.  And God, may the fear of you be something I learn to my core.  May I have the faith to walk in your ways so that I may learn well.